


The Hour The Maker Made

by foxygrampaglasses



Series: If You'd Have Me [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Depersonalization, Depression, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Trans Character, Trans!Lavellan, lots of ugly crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12320982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxygrampaglasses/pseuds/foxygrampaglasses
Summary: Cullen tries to help Owaine heal.





	The Hour The Maker Made

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be part of a collection of Owaine/Cullen ficlets. I'm 100% using this as an outlet for my own issues (woops) so, there will probably be a lot of angst. But hopefully we'll get some more lighthearted fics in here as well.
> 
> If you're struggling with depersonalization and isolating yourself, know that this is a serious health issue and therapy is much more than just talking. Don't let yourself suffer.
> 
> check out my tumblr, sirotterpup, for illustrations and junk. I don't have a lot of dragon age stuff up but I'm working on it.

Andraste had a terribly cruel sense of humor. She must, having placed her blessing upon a “wild” Dalish mage, a boy without boyhood, a boy whose heart yearned for other boys. He once heard a human say “I was homophobic so Andraste gave me three gay sons.” Yes, Andraste was cruel indeed, to throw Owaine in the face of everything her church believed in.

 

Owaine had a heart of a man meant for little. His vallaslin, his ears, his voice. Everything about him gave him away. The very act of existing stole his right to secrets, pried open his every locked box and scattered his dirty laundry at his feet. He didn’t long for normalcy, to fit some kind of mold, but to snuff out the eyes burning into him from every direction. He wanted to fade.

 

And it was no consequence that, in his mind’s eye, he held no shape. Clumsy was a word for it. The lines that separate the self from all else were blurred and thus were his feet, his hands, his heart. He was clumsy with all of it, unable to find boundaries until he long since surpassed them.

 

And now a split of reality pulsed through his palm, a literal hole in his hand.

 

How much more could the fates play with his sense of reality before he lost all sense of it? His eyes could stare at his hands and tell him how they were shaped, unusually stubby fingers for an elf, round palms, but how much could he trust them? His fingers constantly pressed against themselves, searched for clothing, the battle tome strapped to his hip, a rock beneath his wavering feet, the pulse under his skin. He could only define what he was by what he was not.

 

And Inquisitor he most certainly was not. A godless, dirty Dalish fit for neither Andraste nor his own gods. The outline he was meant to fill was too vast, his body too small.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

Cullen caught his staring at his palms.

 

Owaine had spent the several hours behind them staring. At his feet, his legs, his hands, compulsively reminding himself of his lines. His eyes fluttered, left his lines behind to look at Cullen, lineless and backlit by the sun like a painting. The wisps of hair that escaped his head glittered, gold threads curling in the wind.

 

“What?” He didn’t feel himself speak.

 

“The mark.” Cullen clarified. “You looked....I apologize, you just look troubled.” The tips of his cheekbones reddened. Owaine’s eyes slid back to his palms, a flickering green seam on his left. He wondered if Cullen could see just how hollow he felt.

 

“No, it doesn’t hurt.” He said, lips parted as if he might speak of the terrible emptiness it pumped into him with every pulse.

 

But what he said was the truth, all the words sitting on his teeth were just extra.

 

A scout reporting in on the status of rations captured Cullen’s attention, and Owaine’s hold on himself loosened. Without eyes on him, he shrank, his hands held his duffel tight enough to sting.

 

Skyhold was in sight. Cheering broke out amongst the men.

 

\---

 

The sword was merely decorative, but it bore a weight Owaine was not accustomed to. Wood and grain, his hands were meant for staves not metal. And when he spoke, he listened to himself as if he were an audience to this moment.

 

“Whether I want it or not, I am Andraste’s Harold.”

 

Was he?

 

“I will take this mark and protect the world she loved so dearly...”

 

Would he?

 

“As your Inquisitor.”

 

Could he?

 

\---

 

Owaine’s toes were so cold he could barely feel the grass beneath them, but his lines were in the dirt, whether he could feel them or not. He kept his boots close, gripping them by the cuff, as he wandered through the empty courtyard. No guards, no soldiers, no messengers, just an empty heart in an empty keep. The darkness robbed him of any sense of depth, and it felt as though he were breathing stars.

 

Three in the morning was the hour the Maker forgot.

 

Perhaps that was what gave Cullen the freedom to call out to Owaine from several stories away.

 

If it wasn’t the sun, it was moonlight outlining the sharpness of Cullen’s mantel-less shoulders, tangled in those glitter hungry curls. The heavens seemed to follow him, swathing its templar in light at every chance. The light that settled in the shallow wrinkles of his skin was something more ethereal than lyrium, something beyond magic.

 

Owaine’s heart had never learned to flutter, and instead squeezed hard with each beat.

 

Cullen bounced left, right, his body twitching with indecisiveness in his stone tower while Owaine’s numbed feet remained in the grass. Cullen, it seemed, came to some conclusion, jogging with purpose to the end of the path and down the twisting staircase. Owaine watched, his heart the only piece of himself the night hadn’t yet froze.

 

“Inquisitor-” Cullen huffed, one, two, three slowing steps and the living painting was close enough to touch.

 

“Commander.” Owaine’s voice was quiet, unprepared for speaking, small elven eyes wide as Cullen fumbled about his pockets.

 

“I have something-” He nearly dropped his- handkerchief? “I have this, it’s um-I’d like to-” Cullen forced himself to take pause, sucked in a breath and gathered the fabric in his hand. “Could I see your hand?”

 

Owaine’s eyes dropped to his hands, hesitantly lifted his right hand toward Cullen. The Commander sputtered.

 

“I-I’m sorry I meant your-other hand.” He coughed.

 

Owaine’s brain still hadn’t caught up with the moment, his thoughts drunk on stardust and silver lined curls. He traded his right hand for his left, a pulse of green catching the corner of his vision.

 

Cullen unfolded the handkerchief. He wrapped it gently around Owaine’s palm. Heat flooded him, a lick of flame from this sun god following the veins of blood like a trail of oil straight to his heart.

 

“I said it didn’t hurt.” Owaine’s voice hung on heavy breath. The shadows moved around Cullen’s face as his brows pinched, his gentle smile something Owaine’s eyes fought to make out.

 

“But you looked like you were in pain.” He said, tying the linen in place. His hands hovered. “It won’t heal the mark but,” The moonlight illuminated the bob of his adam’s apple. “Oh maker, are you crying?”

 

Owaine blinked, tears spilling down his eyes. So he was. He laughed, rubbing the back of his hand across his face. He was smiling, laughter just under his tongue.

 

“I’m sorry, I-” his voice broke, his smile crumbled, the flames in his heart flickered. His eyes sought Cullen, but the blur of tears kept him obscured. His hands searched, as they always did, for other hands.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-” His mouth and tongue and teeth all tried to speak but all spoke was a steady stream of the same two words “I’m sorry.”

 

Cullen held his shaking hands. Lines of silver in his hair. Lines of fire in his blood. Lines of wrinkled cloth around his palm. Lines of skin on skin. Lines of tears on ruddy cheeks. To be anything but empty was too full for Owaine and he was bursting.

 

His strength fell on those square, soldier grown hands.

 

“You’re fine.” Cullen leaned closer, inviting Owaine to fall.

 

“No I’m not, I’m so sorry-” He gasped, and he fell-

 

Owaine had never cried on someone’s shoulder. Keeping his lines drawn left no time for touching. And here he was, his lines drawn for him in gold and silver and fire and ice, templar and mage. Too real and too full.

 

Time meant nothing to tears. Owaine wasn’t sure how many had been shed by the time he could finally lift his head from Cullen’s soaked shoulder, unsure of how many gasps he took before his chest began aching. He found his hands clutching the back of Cullen’s shirt, their chests pressed together.

 

Their eyes searched each other, unsure.

 

Owaine tried to speak, ending in a weak cough. He tried again, speaking around his dry tongue.

 

“...thank you.”

 

The furnace in Cullen’s chest roared, heat spilling from every pore. There, they found it, in each other’s eyes.

 

“Maker forgive me, I’m going to regret this but-” Cullen drew in a breath-

 

Buried behind doors of shoulds and woulds and coulds, doors that only meant something in the daylight.

 

“Can I kiss you?” Owaine whispered.

 

Cullen exhaled a puff of laughter, the gloss in his eyes highlighting the way they darted back and forth. “Is that alright?” He asked.

 

Owaine pushed up on his toes, nearly falling out of Cullen’s grasp as he remembered his numb feet. Their foreheads met first, Cullen’s hair tickling Owaine’s temples. Then their noses, the button tip of Owaine’s nose poking at Cullen’s cheek. And then, finally, their lips.

 

Dry but gentle, they lingered there, just as the moon lingers long after sunrise and the sun’s rays linger well after sunset.

 

Three in the morning was the hour the Maker left for the broken.

 

Three in the morning was the hour the Maker turned his eyes away.

 

Three in the morning was the hour the Maker made for moments like these.


End file.
